Happy While it lasted
by hillslikewhiteelephants
Summary: One shot! Lily and James Potter have just started their next great adventure, raising their daughter. All Lily can do is pray that she won't go to early grave because of the trouble her daughter gets into, she is sure she is already going gray!


Giving birth was hard work. Lily Potter felt like a sweaty pile of flesh and bones after the fact. However, she also felt as though she may be the luckiest woman in the whole of Britain, for she had the most beautiful baby she had ever seen, though she could admit she might be a tad biased. At the moment she was mesmerized by her daughters bright green eyes, the same as her own, struggling to stay open. Every small thing the babe did fascinated her, how could someone so small be such a strong force already. Her husband's face mirrored her own, the same expression of love and awe.

"James, I think we should name her after your mother. I know your father wished us to give her a nice, simple name, so she wouldn't have to go through the same experiences he did-all the teasing and such. But it only seems proper after their passing." Lily rambled. She then grinned at her husband mischievously, " besides, it will give her character."

James laughed quietly,"I think mum would approve, our last prank on them." His eyes alight for the first time he had been able to smile when thinking about them since their passing. Lily knew their death had hit her Husband hard. Though they had their first and only child, James, a bit older than the average Witch or Wizard, they were still quite Young by wizarding standards who often live two or in some rare cases three times as long as their muggle counterparts.

Lily mock glared and hit her husband's arm playfully at the mention of pranks" Oh, not everything has to be about pranking James Flea-". But James cut her off with a kiss. Something he always did when she used his middle name, he was more alike than his father than he would like to admit.

A coo and a small yawn from the hours old potter babe drew the new parents back and they then settled down in bed to watch their child sleep. They both hoped this moment of bliss would never end.

She was only seven months old but she was already able to cause so much trouble. Lily was sure that she would be completely grey before her daughter was even old enough to go to Hogwarts. Secretly Lily was proud that the little prongslet, as James liked to call her, had already started doing accidental magic. Though accidental magic may be a bit of a misnomer. At first it might of started out as accidental, but now Lily was sure that all of Mia's magical outbursts were deliberate and well executed. Professor Mcgonagall had visited the other day and said she had never heard of anything like it.

The levitating of her stuffed dog Lilly could handle, on a rare occasion they forgot padfoot downstairs and Mia was able to levitate it all the way to her crib. But the apparating down to the kitchen to play with the pots and pans in the middle of the night! Even though both her and James had told her she wasn't allowed! Lily hadn't even been able to apparate until she was 17, sometimes she felt like informing her daughter of this fact but she knew she would only get some babbling and maybe spit bubbles in response.

She blamed it all on James of course.

Mia, as she had been affectionately nicknamed by her her father, was a little rascal. James was convinced that it was payback for all the trouble he caused his parents as a young child. But Mia wasn't even a year old, she was already doing accidental magic. Mostly harmless, but after she had seen her father slip under his invisibility cloak, she somehow managed to make herself invisible as well. Lily had been irate, asked why he couldn't have just played peek-a-boo the muggle way. But why would he ever play it the muggle way, were muggle babies really that dim witted? He hadn't said that last comment to Lilly for she had already been furious enough. But he was sure if he had just put his hands over his eyes, Mia would still know he was there, she had inherited Lily's brains obviously, how could he trick her.

So after the peek-a- boo incident two months prior, she occasionally vanished. Now rationally James knew she couldn't get far, even if she had just started to crawl, that didn't stop him from praying to Merlin and Morgana that Lily wouldn't catch them every time it happened. So even though he knew she couldn't have gone far, he still remained frantic each time it happened. He could already hear the tongue lashing he would get from Lily when she awoke from her nap. "Mia, love, where are you hiding" he said, exasperated. She then shimmered into his line of sight giggling away, as though they had been playing a fun game, and from her point of view he supposed they had been.

"Trying to get daddy in trouble, aren't you" he said picking her up and poking her nose.

"And why would be in trouble James Fleamont Potter" James gave his daughter a stricken look and nervously smiled at his wife.

Life was still good.

She put her daughter's curls into two small pigtails atop her head. It was Mia's first birthday and Lily was determined to make the best of it. They were in hiding but that didn't mean they couldn't do anything for her daughter's first birthday! Mia continued to babble and giggle, unaware of anything going on out in the wizarding world, and that's how it should be Lilly thought. But she dearly wished that they could go out and do things AND be safe. She wanted Mia, to play with other kids, like her god brother Neville. She wanted to bring her daughter to get ice cream for the first time at Florian's. She would even want to visit Petunia and see her nephew, no matter how much her sister disliked her way of life, she would always love her.

However, for the time being they would have to make do! She had baked a cake, with the help of one of the horrified house elves. For all of Lily's many positive attributes she couldn't cook to save her life. James loved her all the more for it, he often teased her saying "not everyone can be as perfect as me and Mia" The natural born Potters he called them, "but you're close enough". Lily just sighed amused, and James had wondered why she thought he was a ponce for most of their Hogwarts years. The teasing always helped lighten the situation and take her mind off of things. Dark things.

Maybe that was why she had caved to James' pleas' of giving Mia a kid's broom, it was something a normal wizarding child did. A child not in hiding from Voldemort. She wanted her daughter to have fun, experience new things. Oh well. This war had to end soon, it had to.

A few months later, one Albus Dumbledore, dropped the young babe on her aunts doorstep on a chilly November night. Swaddled in a woolen blanket and clutching a letter in her tiny hand- she slept on, impervious to the cold conditions around her.

At the same time all around the country people held their glasses up in toast, " to Euphemia Potter- The Girl Who Lived."


End file.
